Knowing Their Place: Domestic Service in Twentieth-Century BritainHistorians have traditionally seen domestic service as an obsolete or redundant sector from the middle of the twentieth century. Knowing Their Place challenges this by linking the early twentieth century employment of maids and cooks to later practices of employing au pairs, mothers' helps, and cleaners. Lucy Delap tells the story of lives and labour within twentieth century British homes, from great houses to suburbs and slums, and charts the interactions of servants and employers along with the intense controversies and emotions they inspired. Knowing Their Place examines the employment of men and migrant workers, as well as the role of laughter and erotic desire in shaping domestic service. The memory of domestic service and the role of the past in shaping and mediating the present is examined through heritage and televisual sources, from Upstairs, Downstairs toThe 1900 House. Drawing from advice manuals, magazines, novels, cinema, memoirs, feminist tracts, and photographs, this fascinating book will be of particular interest to scholars and students of Modern history, English literature, anthropology, cultural studies, social geography, gender studies, and women's studies. It points to new directions in cultural history through its engagement in innovative areas such as the history of emotions and cultural memory. Through its attention to the contemporary rise in the employment of domestic workers, Knowing Their Place sets 'modern' Britain in a new and compelling historical context. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
1 TwentiethCentury Servants | 26 |
2 ServantKeepers and the Management of Servants | 63 |
The Servantless Home | 98 |
Domestic Service Humour | 140 |
Servants in Pornography and Erotica | 173 |
Domestic Service Remembered and Performed | 206 |
Conclusion | 236 |
| 244 | |
| 259 | |
Other editions - View all
Knowing Their Place: Domestic Service in Twentieth Century Britain Lucy Delap No preview available - 2014 |
Knowing Their Place: Domestic Service in Twentieth-Century Britain Lucy Delap No preview available - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
amongst Archive argued aspirations associated au pairs Audley End House authority became Britain British chars cinema cleaner cleaning comic commented contemporary continued cook cultural depicted described domestic servants domestic service domestic workers Edwardian Edwardian Country House emotional employed employment England English erotic imaginary eroticized ethnicity experiences exploitation fantasies female servants feminist Gender George Ewart Evans girls heritage performances historians household Housekeeping housemaid housewife housework identity imagined Interview interwar intimacy J. B. Priestley jokes Katharine Whitehorn kitchen labour market labour-saving lady laughter living magazine maid male servants Manchester memory middle middle-class middle-class women mistress modern Monica Dickens mother nannies narrative Nonetheless nostalgia numbers offered Oral History Oxford University Press past popular pornography recalled relationship role Routledge sense servant problem servant-keeping servantless servants and employers sexual Social History society Stairs status twentieth century UK Data Archive Upstairs Downstairs Victorian wages woman working-class World young women